4 ms·

>Android managed to do fairly well with $9,605 in sales for 2014 This is pretty impressive. Usually the narrative is "don't bother with Android, no one will bu

>Android managed to do fairly well with $9,605 in sales for 2014 This is pretty impressive. Usually the narrative is "don't bother with Android, no one will buy because they all pirate." His Android app made almost 70% of his iPad app. I have a game I'm working on - a simple visual novel/point-n-click/hidden-object game. I see games of this type selling in the tens of thousands on Steam. There's a huge market of non-FPS gamers, mostly women, looking for fun and smart content. I personally love these games, they're relaxing and often have a decent story to tell. My dream here is 10k sales at $10, which is doable with the right product that can be made by a very small team or even one person. I don't know if I will hit that, especially my first time around, but its fun to think that this is a practical goal for a one person dev. (I do coding, art, and music, but to be fair I might need to buy music as I pretty much suck at it even by video game standards.) >Today, Cook, Serve, Delicious has grossed over $610,000 in sales across mobile, Steam, distro websites This is really inspiring. I'm so happy for his success. >Steam accounts for 78% of that financial figure. I never would have guessed that. The tech press keeps telling me how hot mobile is and how lame PC's are. Sometimes I kick myself for missing the big mobile revolution. Steam is quite the juggernaut still, even with its 30% cut. edit: when finished can i show it to HN or is that against the rules?

wlesieutre 12y ago
> I never would have guessed that. The tech press keeps telling me how hot mobile is and how lame PC's are. Sometimes I kick myself for missing the big mobile revolution. Steam is quite the juggernaut still, even with its 30% cut. It may just be my personal prejudice based on my friend-group, but my impression is that there are a lot more people on PC willing to seek out, try, and talk about unusual/obscure games. More people on mobile tend to get their game recommendations from the "Top Paid" and "Top Free" lists, and if you're not Angry Birds or Minecraft Pocket you're not likely to have a lot of people notice you. Not that PC gaming doesn't include a huge contingent of people mainly play the big releases (CoD etc), but even among my esports buddies who play DotA all the time there's still a lot of excitement about smaller studios. EDIT: Speaking of, anybody want a copy of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons? I picked up a couple of extras during the last Steam sale to give away since it's not nearly as well known as it ought to be. Difficult to describe by genre, but I might call it an interactive fairytale? Requires a controller (each thumb stick controls a character).
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > It may just be my personal prejudice based on my friend-group, but my impression is that there are a lot more people on PC willing to seek out, try, and talk about unusual/obscure games. More people on mobile tend to get their game recommendations from the "Top Paid" and "Top Free" lists, and if you're not Angry Birds or Minecraft Pocket you're not likely to have a lot of people notice you. I want to add myself as a data point for you. I don't explore games (or apps) in the Play Store, because 99% is crap. Randomly picked app/game is something barely functional and evidently made for ad income. This makes me install only the reputable apps (like Dropbox, Acrobat Reader) or ones that were recommended by friends, on HN (I've bought an app just this month from a recomendation here), or somewhere else. As for games, I don't shop for those often on purpose, so unless someone suggests it to me, I probably won't find it. PC games tend to be easier to encounter, I have more avenues to check their quality before installing, and... there's this feeling that I have more control over what I install on PC than on my phone.
- fat0wl 12y ago
  o man i would love to try "brothers" :) does the offer still stand? i am one of those "controller" pc gamers... (i am "fat0wl" on steam too!)
- abroncs 12y ago
  Echoing what the sibling comment said, I have almost 300 games on Steam (at least half of those are indies) while 4-5 on mobile. And my mobile games are Threes, Monument Valley etc. basically the super popular ones.
- ameen 12y ago
  Content discovery on mobile is broken and requires a lot more advertising effort or store features. PC is more organic as there are a ton of stores and steam itself promotes game discovery as friend's games are visible. I'm one of those DotA playing guys who loves small indie games (try to start working on one.) I'd also love Brothers if it's still available :D You can add me on steam if you feel like: http://steamcommunity.com/id/amxn http://steamcommunity.com/id/amxn
- hoggle 12y ago
eswat 12y ago
> I never would have guessed that. The tech press keeps telling me how hot mobile is and how lame PC's are. I think part of it is the demographic. While I’m not much of a mobile gamer and biased towards PCs a bit, I believe the PC market is more accepting – both in terms of getting your work out there and people paying money for it – of indie titles (Steam Greenlight, Itch.io, indie publishers like Devolver that tend to stick with PC and consoles, etc.) Mobile is hot for those that lucked out or had a lot of time and manpower to know how to work the markets on those platforms. For someone that wants to just get a game out there I think PC gives the best shot.
ANTSANTS 12y ago
>I never would have guessed that. The tech press keeps telling me how hot mobile is and how lame PC's are. There was an interesting discussion on this topic here a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8879927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8879927 It's really sad to see some indie devs (or even, to go off on a bit of a tangent, projects like GNOME and Ubuntu Unity) killing themselves following the "PC is dead, mobile is the future" hype off a cliff instead of focusing on the much more stable and receptive PC userbase.

wlesieutre 12y ago

> I never would have guessed that. The tech press keeps telling me how hot mobile is and how lame PC's are. Sometimes I kick myself for missing the big mobile revolution. Steam is quite the juggernaut still, even with its 30% cut. It may just be my personal prejudice based on my friend-group, but my impression is that there are a lot more people on PC willing to seek out, try, and talk about unusual/obscure games. More people on mobile tend to get their game recommendations from the "Top Paid" and "Top Free" lists, and if you're not Angry Birds or Minecraft Pocket you're not likely to have a lot of people notice you. Not that PC gaming doesn't include a huge contingent of people mainly play the big releases (CoD etc), but even among my esports buddies who play DotA all the time there's still a lot of excitement about smaller studios. EDIT: Speaking of, anybody want a copy of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons? I picked up a couple of extras during the last Steam sale to give away since it's not nearly as well known as it ought to be. Difficult to describe by genre, but I might call it an interactive fairytale? Requires a controller (each thumb stick controls a character).

TeMPOraL 12y ago
> It may just be my personal prejudice based on my friend-group, but my impression is that there are a lot more people on PC willing to seek out, try, and talk about unusual/obscure games. More people on mobile tend to get their game recommendations from the "Top Paid" and "Top Free" lists, and if you're not Angry Birds or Minecraft Pocket you're not likely to have a lot of people notice you. I want to add myself as a data point for you. I don't explore games (or apps) in the Play Store, because 99% is crap. Randomly picked app/game is something barely functional and evidently made for ad income. This makes me install only the reputable apps (like Dropbox, Acrobat Reader) or ones that were recommended by friends, on HN (I've bought an app just this month from a recomendation here), or somewhere else. As for games, I don't shop for those often on purpose, so unless someone suggests it to me, I probably won't find it. PC games tend to be easier to encounter, I have more avenues to check their quality before installing, and... there's this feeling that I have more control over what I install on PC than on my phone.
fat0wl 12y ago
o man i would love to try "brothers" :) does the offer still stand? i am one of those "controller" pc gamers... (i am "fat0wl" on steam too!)
abroncs 12y ago
Echoing what the sibling comment said, I have almost 300 games on Steam (at least half of those are indies) while 4-5 on mobile. And my mobile games are Threes, Monument Valley etc. basically the super popular ones.
ameen 12y ago
Content discovery on mobile is broken and requires a lot more advertising effort or store features. PC is more organic as there are a ton of stores and steam itself promotes game discovery as friend's games are visible. I'm one of those DotA playing guys who loves small indie games (try to start working on one.) I'd also love Brothers if it's still available :D You can add me on steam if you feel like: http://steamcommunity.com/id/amxn http://steamcommunity.com/id/amxn
hoggle 12y ago

eswat 12y ago

> I never would have guessed that. The tech press keeps telling me how hot mobile is and how lame PC's are. I think part of it is the demographic. While I’m not much of a mobile gamer and biased towards PCs a bit, I believe the PC market is more accepting – both in terms of getting your work out there and people paying money for it – of indie titles (Steam Greenlight, Itch.io, indie publishers like Devolver that tend to stick with PC and consoles, etc.) Mobile is hot for those that lucked out or had a lot of time and manpower to know how to work the markets on those platforms. For someone that wants to just get a game out there I think PC gives the best shot.

ANTSANTS 12y ago

>I never would have guessed that. The tech press keeps telling me how hot mobile is and how lame PC's are. There was an interesting discussion on this topic here a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8879927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8879927 It's really sad to see some indie devs (or even, to go off on a bit of a tangent, projects like GNOME and Ubuntu Unity) killing themselves following the "PC is dead, mobile is the future" hype off a cliff instead of focusing on the much more stable and receptive PC userbase.